Weuw: why you should always book a window seat on a plane

Fear of germs? Then I can imagine that spending hours in a hermetically sealed box with hundreds of people is no fun for you. That your ‘lice cloth’ is immediately flapping over the back of your chair. You're right.

In front of you, you hear someone with a nasty cough, your neighbor is blowing his nose next to you, and the cheerful baby sitting a row ahead of you is already throwing up for the third time. Germs. Are. Everywhere. The. Horror. How do you have the least chance of getting sick? By quickly securing a window seat. Yes, really.

Window seaters have the least chance of catching a cold, stomach flu, or other misery, according to research from the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is because in that strategically chosen spot, you come into contact with fewer other people. I, um, actually always prefer an aisle seat, but that spot is, according to the researchers, total horror when it comes to the germ issue. Especially due to passersby who easily grab the headrests with their dirty hands while walking by, with all the bacterial consequences that entails.

A small sidenote is that with a ‘lucky’ window seat, you shouldn't get up during the entire flight if you want to have the least chance of getting sick. So say goodbye to that bathroom break. And the middle seat then? Nah, not really pleasant either. Here you get infected from both the left and the right. Pfff, it's never good. Stay home then? NeverNeverNot. Then just get a cold. Yay!